Let’s take some cues from poets in a pandemic
Steve Montgomery
Steve Montgomery was ordained in 1980 and became senior pastor at Idlewild Presbyterian Church in 2000 after serving churches in Appalachia and Atlanta. He retired from Idlewild in 2019.
During the coronavirus crisis, who have you taken your cues from?
Some have leaned on politicians, but there is a wide discrepancy among federal, state and local leaders as to what strategy we might take to make it through.
Others have trusted the economic “experts,” relying on whatever statistics would help prove their case to fashion a more robust recovery.
And perhaps a majority of us have lifted up the medical teams around the country that are guided by science and facts, rather than political ideologies or conspiracies. Dr. Anthony Fauci has become a veritable rock star, and deservedly so, in my humble opinion.
But there is one group that we as a society have neglected, and I would make the case that it is the poets, the artists and the musicians who historically have been able to speak the truth when the truth is hard to come by, and who have done more to help people through the crises they faced than so-called experts in politics, economics and even religion. Let me give several examples.
About 2,500 years ago, the nation Israel faced a crisis of unprecedented proportions. Many of them felt that they were blessed, and that God would protect them and increase their prosperity. (Sound familiar?)
Yet there they were, wandering around in the residue of a war zone. The once proud citizens of a once proud city were reduced to eating dogs and rats, the temple was burned, and many were hauled off to become slaves of the Babylonians.
It was a poet by the name of Isaiah who knew that all the simple answers had been found wanting. He knew that they could not get by with platitudes, sound bites, one-liners and tweets. Rather than waxing sentimental for the return of bygone days which never were, this poet opened up the wounds by giving voice to their grief:
“O that you would tear open the heavens and come down,” he cried out. Isn’t that our prayer, when we are most honest with ourselves? “Come on down, God, and make things right!” It was the poet who helped the people voice their deep faith and deep despair with a profound theology and a howl of pain.
The poet did not stop in despair, but moved towards great hope and promise. He went on to point out in poetic language what it would mean for the common good to be embraced with health care, education, safe neighborhoods, plentiful good water and environmental stewardship. Only a poet can help us see that these are not pipe dreams of social idealists, but they are within our capacity to create!
There was another poet/musician turned pastor who lived in the midst of a plague and war and knew something many of us forget. Martin Rinkart was a gifted musician who lived about 400 years ago in a small town in Germany. He eventually became a pastor in Eilenburg, a walled city which became a haven not only for refugees seeking safety but also for famine and pestilence.
In one year alone, 8,000 people in that one city died, including most clergy and Rinkart’s wife. He preached at burial services for as many as 200 in a week. He gave away virtually all he owned to those who he felt needed goods more than he.
And yet in the midst of the very worst that life could offer, this poet/musician wrote words that are familiar to many of us:
Now thank we all our God, with heart and hands and voices; Who wondrous things has done, in whom this world rejoices.
He closes with these words:
Keep us all in grace, and guide us when perplexed, And free us from all harm, in this world and the next.
Sometimes mere prose isn’t enough. Sometimes we need to go beyond the experts and allow our emotions to take over from the intellect, and let our poets, artists and musicians use their gifts of heart, mind and hands to become vehicles for our highest potentiality.
It was a ballerina who, after a brilliant performance, responded to an ecstatic admirer who said her dance conveyed such a profound message of beauty and praise that she should also write. She responded, “If I could have said it, I would not have danced it.”
Perhaps she, and other artists and poets like Isaiah and Rinkart, knew something that we could learn from. Maybe we should take our cues from them.
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